


The 12 Days of Christmas

by aliitvodeson



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 12 Days of Christmas, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Bond AU - Freeform, Collection of one shots, Daddy Jim, Daddy Kink, Dark John, Dirty Talk, Fluff, M/M, Sensory Deprivation, Slave John, Slavery, Surprises, Vampire AU, Vampire Jim, collaring, dub con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 15:54:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 5,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3214901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliitvodeson/pseuds/aliitvodeson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twelve ficlets written for chosenofashurha as part of the secret Santa tumblr exchange.<br/>Specific details in each chapter title</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On the first day of Christmas... Dirty Talk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Johniarty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johniarty/gifts).



John doesn’t even have to look at the labels to know which presents are for him. Despite them both using the same wrapping paper (some fancy custom print Jim picked up), there is a distinct style to each present. The ones that Jim wrapped look fancy. Truly look fancy, with crisp pressed lines and no sign of tape. They sit under the christmas tree as if they were meant to be there. John’s...well John’s gifts just look like gifts.  
There is, of course, an over abundance of gifts when it’s just going to be the two of them there. Jim’s outnumber John’s. He suspects most of them are going to turn out to be clothes; cashmere jumpers, silk button ups, possibly a Westwood suit. Jim had been dropping hints about taking John to the unveiling of her new line, so he wouldn’t be surprised if there was one in the giant pile of gifts that lies under the christmas tree.  
“You’re not allowed to open them yet.” Arms snaked around John’s waist, pulling him back against a warm body, a chin balancing on his shoulder. Jim’s fingers played with the hem of John’s cream jumper before settling themselves on his hips. He felt hot air coming out of Jim’s mouth and across his arm.  
“Do you think you could stop me?” John’s eyes stay on the tree, his hands moving up to cup Jim’s, entwining their fingers together.  
“Easily.” The irish accent makes the word more threatening than it has a right to be, even coming from Jim’s lips. He nips at John’s ear before returning his chin to John’s shoulder, purring softly when John jumps at the sudden pain. “I would tie you to the bed posts, keep you there until the snow is gone and all thoughts of christmas are out of your mind. I would feed you from my fingers, make you beg for each crumb.”  
John chuckled, and leaned his own head back to rest itself on the faint presence of Jim’s shoulder. “And I thought you didn’t like christmas.”


	2. On the second day of Christmas... Surprise Visit

Jim has to go on a trip right before Christmas. John hates whenever Jim goes on one of these trips (too dangerous, last time he came back with blood stains on his favourite shoes, Jim brings home odd gifts John really doesn’t want to know the story behind). He hates this trip especially. Jim assures him that they’ll be back in time for Christmas morning, but John can see the doubt in Sebastian’s eyes.  
If Sebastian doesn’t think the deal with the American drug dealers will go through in time, then it probably won’t.  
He spend the week working, diving into the clinic hours and taking all of the extra shifts no one else wants. This close to the holidays, it’s all colds and frostbite scares and all of the doctors but him would rather be at home with their own families. He loses track of how many colleagues say thank you to him after the fifth time.  
He closes up the clinic on Wednesday night, waving goodbye to the last patient. It’s now Christmas Eve; Jim was scheduled to be home this morning. He checks his mobile as he walks to the tube station. No new messages. Even Sherlock is out of town - dragged off to his parents’ house for a big family Christmas. They had invited John as well.  
Maybe he should call Mycroft for a car. Jim wouldn’t begrudge him for wanting to spend Christmas with someone, even if it is the Holmes family.  
He comes home to a dark flat. “That’s odd.” He doesn’t recall closing the blinds; there should be street light coming in from outside the windows. He pulls his pistol from his waistband as he hits the light switch.  
There’s suddenly an awful lot of colourful lights in the room, illuminating a giant Christmas tree by the window and Jim sitting in front of the pile of presents. He’s wearing a christmas jumper (my god, John thinks, an actual christmas jumper) and has a ribbon in his hair.  
The doctor stands dumbfounded in front of it all, his jaw literally hanging open for three seconds before he pulls himself together and shakes himself out of it.  
“J-Jim. You’re home! And what have you done to our flat?”  
“Merry Christmas Johnny boy!”


	3. On the third day of Christmas.... Alpha/Omega

“Please Jim!” John’s hands grasp at the sheets, pulsating in their desperate need for something more. His cheeks are flushed red, his eyes glazed over with a look akin to a drug addict under their latest rush. “I need you, now, please Jim!”  
Jim smirks, and leans over John, his hands balanced on either side of John’s head, dark eyes blazing as they roam over the desperate man’s face. “Just what is it about me you need?” John may be desperately gone, but Jim isn’t. Not quite yet. He didn’t stop taking his own suppressants, even when John willingly went off his own and entered a desperate heat. John smells fantastic, as any omega does during a heat, Jim can just restrain himself long enough to torment the man.  
“Just knot me already dammit, Jim!” There’s the anger Jim knows, the army man breaking out of the heat-lust.  
His fingers curl inward, running themselves through John’s hair, and then he shifts his hips, shuffling his legs backward. John positively keens when Jim breaches him, hands flying up to dig angry scratches into his back. “Jim, don’t stop, Jim, Jim, Jim.” His name falls like a prayer from John’s lips, over and over until the words have run together like so many gasps of air and John’s eyes close in bliss.  
Jim pushes his hips forward once more and feels the needy heat of John’s body as he is taken deeper than any of their other couplings. This is heat, and they're both ready, and John swallows Jim completely, his body wrapping around Jim’s knot and holding there. Jim collapses forward, his forehead on John’s shoulder, panting. John keeps saying his name as Jim runs a careful finger over his cheekbone. “Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim.”  
“Oh Johnny boy,” he echoes back. “Oh my precious Johnny boy.”


	4. On the fourth day of Christmas... Collaring

“Oh Daddy, you shouldn’t have.” The box had been small, one of the more simple gifts under their giant christmas tree. Of course, that just means it turns out to contain something all the more valuable, as if Jim’s presents have an inversion relationship between size and value. Pale blue wrapping paper (“matches your eyes”), a simple black gift box (“well open it darling”) and inside, silk in place of wrapping paper. John unfolded it and gasped when he saw what lay inside.“I knew you’d like it.” Jim draped an arm around John’s shoulder and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Had it made special; custom ordered from a jewelery in Switzerland.”  
John lifted the collar by the leather. watching the gems twinkle in the light from the decorations around them. The leather was soft under his fingers, a dark brown that contrasted the pale silver of the band. Comprised of nearly a full circle, the metal would rest on top of the leather, isolated from John’s throat once he put it on. There were several blue-purple gems that looked oddly out of place with the rest of the collar.  
“What are they?” His voice held a certain amount of awe. Even without Jim’s answer, he knew they would be precious stones, rarer and expensive. A king’s ransom probably sat in John’s hands right now.  
“Musgravite.” Jim’s voice told John he was smirking, an expressive he didn’t have to turn his head to see. “The most rare gem in the world. Outside of these, there are only eight cut gems in the world.”  
“Eight?” John’s voice drops in wonder. Even for Jim, this seems outrageous. “How did you get them?”  
He felt Jim shrug against his side. “For you Johnny boy, I would get anything.”  
Jim helps him get the collar on, locking it in place around John’s neck and then pressing a long kiss to his skin just above the leather. John turns around and captures Jim’s lips with his own, murmuring, “thank you,” as they fall once more onto the couch, arms around each other. Jim’s fingers seem never to leave the collar, and John moans out, “Daddy,” when Jim tugs on it to lift their lips together once more and their cocks push against their trousers.  
The collar the last gift they manage to open that day; the rest wait under the tree until December 26.


	5. On the fifth day of Christmas.... Vampire AU

Jim picks his way through the smoke filled room, eyeing the bodies laid out and the hands that stretch out to reach for him. Offered wrists, pale skin, haunted eyes. The building is alive with the scent of humans and their blood, but there is only one he seeks. He could smell the blood from the street, through the brick walls and muddy stench of London. Like a well aged cup of wine, this blood had called out to him with it’s scent, bringing him to a halt and causing his feet to wander into the market.  
A woman, no, a girl offers her limp wrist up for his consumption. He pauses; but while her scent is more pleasing than most in this dull place, it is not the one he hungers for. He moves on, stepping lightly around the couches the human slaves lounge out.  
Jim is old enough to remember the system’s creation.  
Humanity had cried out for a more organized manner for vampire’s to pick their meals, and in a strange act of kindness, it had been granted. The markets were three hundred years old; humans were sold into them, and vampires bought their thralls within. And while Jim preferred the days of old where he might find a meal wandering free on the streets, he had to admire the market for keeping that sweet scent in one place.  
There!  
A blond man, sitting on the couch in the back of the room, the shadows that lurk by the wall hiding him for the most part. Jim approaches, and the man offers his wrist without looking, without even blinking. Desentized, Jim notes, been here for years. Or, he changes his mind as he bends down slightly, simply knows that he’s not going to be a popular choice. There’s a scar on the man’s shoulder, ugly and red against the muscle. And those themselves are enough to turn most vampires away. Humans are prey-soft and dainty, not fighters.  
Jim hovers, and though his fangs pinch into his lips with their want for the man’s sweet blood, he does not bite. Eventually, the man seems to sense that he is not going to drink or simply wander off, and turns to look at Jim.  
“Exquisite,” murmurs Jim.  
“Pardon?” The man asks. He’s old than he smells, Jim notices. The sweet tang of his scent leaves the impression of youth, but his face is lined in a manner that suggests a man who has seen much of the pain this world can bring.  
“Your blood.”  
“You haven’t drunk any.” He speaks flatly, almost bored. His eyes have lit up with some private fire, dancing behind his facial mask of uncaring. Jim is delighted.  
“I don’t have to,” he tells the human, and watches the fire blaze under the onslaught of sudden terror. “I could smell it from outside. It has been five centuries since I’ve smelt a human so....”  
“Delicious?” The man prompts when Jim struggles for the right word.  
“Enticing,” he corrects.  
“So I suppose you want to buy me then.”  
Jim smirks, hands playing with the pockets of his trousers.  
The man is bare chested, and Jim lets his eyes roam freely over the muscles that gleam in the half light of the market room. There’s power there, a power that might even fight off a vampire. A brain too, if he’s not much mistaken. What the human male lacks in physical strength, he’ll make up in smarts and oh, this will be delightful. “I’m going to have to watch myself around you.” He whispers softly, intending to voice the words but trying to keep them from the man all the same.  
The blue eyes narrow pointedly. So the man either had very exceptional hearing, or read lips. Jim would bet on the later.  
“What’s your name then?” He asks, and the wrist is dropped down at last.  
“Watson. Doctor John Watson.”  
Jim’s fangs hover in the darkness just above his lip as he grins. “Oh Doctor Watson, we’re going to get along wonderfully.”


	6. On the sixth day of Christmas.... Bond AU

John’s been working this case for months now, tracking down loose thread after loose thread, taking one step forward and three steps back. He feels as if he might be failing in his mission; his handler tells him otherwise the one time he confesses that fear, that any details about the mysterious crime lord help, but the nagging feeling of trying to solve an unsolvable puzzle doesn’t go away.  
Right now, he’s following the tip the dying drug dealer gave him two weeks ago. It didn’t make any sense then, just a jumbled sentence the criminal had spat out that he thought would make John take him in for medical attention. Too bad for him, John had thought at the time. Double tap to the head on top of the bullet already in his gut.  
He swipes his card in the door, nods at the security guard, and rides the elevator up to the fifteenth floor. Supposedly the criminal mastermind’s flat. He knows this could be a trap, it’s undoubtedly a trap, but HQ says this lead is worth it. There’s a marked lack of security cameras watching the flat door, and the door lock is way too easy to pick. He kicks the door open with his gun already drawn. The flat is dark, dim light coming in from the night sky outside the floor to ceiling windows, outlining a modern style living room and an open kitchen. John pauses at the corner of the wall.  
“Come on in, darling, I’ve been expecting you.” The voice - male he thinks, and with an delightful irish twist - has hardly started speaking before John’s gun is up and his breath has slowed. The man laughs. “Oh, don’t bother. You’re not going to hurt me.”  
John blinks in the sudden brightness as the flat is lit up. The man is standing by the window, his form well cut in a dark suit and a smile John would only associate with movie villains on his face. “Jim Moriarty. Hi!”  
The barrell of John’s gun is pointed directly at his chest. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you right now.” He’s got his orders. Perfectly clear, shoot on sight, shoot to kill. Lady Britain did not need Moriarty running around in her underworld any longer.  
“Because you’re a good man, Agent Watson. Or should I say, Doctor Watson?” His tongue flicks forward when he says John’s title, as if he enjoys saying it. “You don’t enjoy killing people, not when dear daddy handler orders it. And they do that oh so often.”  
He’s not talking like a man who just knows about how the service works. He speaks as if he knows John’s history, the bodies he’s been told to leave, the number of successful kills in his file. That knowing tone. “How do you know this?”  
“Because I make it my business to know.”  
Moriarty starts walking towards him, and John finds himself lowering it gun, and they eventually get to the point when John is backed up against the wall with Moriarty hovering like an angel of death above him. “You’re good at what you do, but you don’t like it. You liked being a doctor. You liked saving lives.” There’s a dark smirk on Moriarty’s face when he dips his head down. John feels warm breath on his ears and the gentle kiss of lips against his skin.  
“I can give you what you want, Doctor. I can let you save lives again.”  
“Why-” His voice breaks. It hasn’t done that in years. He starts again, staring at a point over Moriarty’s shoulder, refusing to look at the oh so tempting neck. “Why should I trust you?”  
There’s laughter, and John shivers, and then Moriarty is kissing him, hard and fast and John drops his gun impulsively to grip the man’s hips and pull him closer.  
When they break apart they’re both breathless and John has a dazed feeling about his thoughts. Moriarty licks his lips slowly. “You shouldn’t trust me, Johnny boy. In this business, never trust anyone.” Then he claims John’s lips again and John somehow lets him, thinking that this has gone oh so differently than it had seemed to be when it was just a drug lord’s last dying confession.


	7. On the seventh day of Christmas... Gingerbread Houses

“No, no, Jim! You can’t do it like that!”  
Their kitchen table is currently covered in gingerbread, icing and various candies. He’d picked up everything on his way home from the clinic, each type of candy carefully considered for it’s marite in decorating. The icing is homemade - the old Watson family recipe that settles quickly and holds everything together just right.  
And Jim is simply slapping gingerbread cookies together with candy any which way it pleases him. John is beginning to think the whole endeavor is cursed. The house he had been working on is perfectly balanced with gumdrop trees and smarties roof tiles. Jim’s just looks like something a child would put together and eat five seconds later.  
“And why can’t I?” He pouts, icing sticky to his lower lip.  
“Because Jim, that isn’t a decent gingerbread house.”  
Jim looks down at his creation, and then over at John’s. “It’s better than yours.”  
John’s opinion is vastly different. Jim clearly has no sense about gingerbread houses being a time honoured tradition, that deserves respect and at least some artistic measure. “Come here.” He beckons the criminal over and slips his arm around Jim’s shoulder. “Mine actually looks like a house. Your’s is falling apart.”  
As if to prove John’s point, the roof slides apart and onto the base at that very moment.  
Jim’s eyes turn up to look at John, big and brown and pleading. “Show me how to make a proper one, then, Johnny boy.”  
“Of course.” John kisses the icing from Jim’s lips, and picks up the fallen pieces of Jim’s house with a smile.


	8. On the eigth day of Christmas.... Dark John

“Excuse me?” John looks up from his book, his reading glasses sliding down his nose as he does so. The man who had been walking up the path has stopped in front of John’s house, standing with his hands in his suit pockets. He’s looking up at John, despite not looking at all interested in the house when John had spotted him coming up from the street earlier.  
“Yes?”  
“I’m looking for Captain John Watson.” There’s a sharp look to his face, though John can’t see the details of his eyes from this distance. At least he’s stayed down on the path and not come up the porch. John had gotten into the book; hadn’t noticed that he was being approached until the man had called out to him.  
He slides the bookmark into his spot and sets the book on the side table. “I’m retired.”  
“I know.”  
“Then you know I’m not interested in whatever job you want me to do.”  
There had been plenty of offers in the first few years. Secret service, intelligence, even the private sector. Some times, John didn’t let them stay long enough to explain who they worked for before kicking them out. The offers had trickled down in the past year - five years out of the army and he was no longer worth coming all the way to northern Alberta.  
“You don’t know what I’m offering in return.”  
“I’m not interested.” He picks up his book again, though his eyes stay on the man, who isn’t turning away.  
“I will pay you millions.” John makes a point of studying the book. “It’s not dirty work.” He grunts, and turns the page. “I know what will fix your leg.” That catches his attention. He slowly puts down the book again. When he looks properly at the man, his reading glasses between his fingers, the man is grinning.  
“What do you know about my leg?”  
“Only that danger will make the limping stop. Happened last year, during that hold up at the convenience store, didn’t it? You need the danger, the rush. You crave it. I’ll give it to you.”  
“It’s post traumatic stress disorder. Danger won’t help.” He’s doing a piss poor job of lying, and he knows it.  
The man’s eyebrows go up. “You really believe that?”  
“No,” he replies softly.  
“Good.” The man comes up the steps, and looks down at John. “I’m Jim Moriarty. I’d like for you to come work for me.”  
“I’ve never heard of you.”  
“Good.”  
It’s such a simple word, but John can hear the gleeful lilt to it, and the irish slant that comes with all of the man’s words just makes it seem even more wild. He puts his hand to his waist, feeling the gun he still keeps there. “What sort of work are you in?”  
“Nothing objectionable.”  
“What sort?”  
The man seems almost bothered about his persistence. “I need a bodyguard, someone who I can trust, and someone who can patch up bodies. And you’re hot.”  
John feels like he’s blushing, though he’s heard far worse things. Showing up, calling him out while he’s reading on his porch, an offer for a mysterious job, it’s all out of place for his life since the army.  
“Can I come in?” Jim asks, and John nods, grabbing his book and holding the door to the house open. He feels Jim’s eyes on him the whole time.  
Two days later, the house is up for sale and John’s packed his things to be shipped to England. He never really liked Canada anyways.


	9. On the ninth day of Christmas.... Sensory Deprivation (dub con)

Sixteen meals.  
Sixteen meals have passed since John last felt human touch or saw daylight. He counts the meals as they come, repeating the number over and over to himself while he languishes in the cell. He can't trust sleep anymore. Without any light, he sometimes wonders if he ever sleeps. It does not feel like days have passed.  
He remembers the anger in Moriarty's face when John had hit him. He couldn't deny it felt good to get some back at the man who had done his best to ruin John's life. It doesn't get him any closer to freedom (the opposite; he gets thrown in this hellish cell), but it sure feels good remembering the power beneath his fists.  
The door opens, and John turns his head to the sound of it. He can only see the vague outline of a man from his position sitting on the floor. An arm stretches out and John ducks his head, bringing a chuckle from Moriarty's lips as his fingers card through John's hair. He tries not to lean into the touch.  
"Well there pet, I can see you've learned some manners." Moriarty's voice is too loud, even though John knows he isn't yelling. It drives the silence back from his mind, and with it the worry he'll be stuck in the cell until he goes mad. Moriarty's fingers catch on a knot in John's hair, and even the soft pain of having it broken is more than he can stand. "There, there, Johnny dear," Jim tutts when John hisses. "Everything is just fine."  
He knows Moriarty is lying. He knows it's been sixteen meals since he was put in the cell. He knows Moriarty ordered it. He knows he should be afraid or fighting or at least moving away from the hands that are now gently exploring his face and tilting his chin up. He knows everything is not fine, but he still can't stop from nuzzling against Jim's palm because god it feels so good to have someone else touch him.  
"That's right, pet." Jim bends down at puts his legs up against John and John leans against him, head still between Jim's hands. Jim is warm and soft and kind. "You're going to behave for me now, aren't you? I don't want any more outbursts."  
And when John nods his head, Jim kisses him softly on the lips and leads him out to the shower. Gentle hands wash him, and dry him off. As Jim guides him to bed and spoons him from behind, John finds himself thinking that it isn't so bad to just give in.


	10. On the tenth day of Christmas.... Daddy Kink (dub con)

“Johnny boy, I’m home!”  
The door closes behind Jim and John looks up from his book. The criminal is already stripping, hanging his coat on the hanger and sliding his jacket off his shoulders. By the time John has his bookmark between the pages, Jim’s lost his tie and shoes, and already unbuttoning his white shirt. “What are you reading now?”  
“Harry Potter.”  
Jim slips his arms around John from behind the couch, pulling John back against the soft leather. “Which one?” He kisses the top of John’s hair after the question, and then presses his nose into his hair. John can’t help but lean back into the touch, sighing softly. It’s been a while since Jim came home in such a good mood.  
“Chamber of Secrets. I’m rereading the series, since it’s been a while.” He’s already putting the book down when Jim takes it from him, throwing it somewhere across the room behind him. John winced without thinking when he heard the book clatter to the floor. He wasn’t all too fond of his things being thrown around like that.  
Jim chuckles and sliding his hands further down John’s chest, spreading them out possessively across the simple jumper. His breath comes hot and heavy in John’s ear, just a hint of irish accent in it. “Bed or couch, dear pet? I don’t want to wait very long.”  
John chest hitches, and he has to close his eyes, breathing out before he can answer properly. “Bed.”  
Jim’s hands slide away, and John standing as soon as he can, Jim already grabbing his hand and tugging him around the couch and towards the bedroom. “Now, then, pet.”  
They’re barely inside the bedroom when Jim pushes on John’s chest, forcing him to stumble backwards and land on his back, not quite yet at the bed. “Jim, please, let me get to the bed.” There’s no verbal reply, but Jim’s eyes flash and he straddles John’s waist, pushing John’s jumper up over his chest.  
“No,” he snaps. “Here, pet, I’m not waiting.”  
John is just starting to doubt Jim’s good mood when Jim undoes his belt and pulls the jeans down from his waist. There’s no doubt about it, Jim’s either had a very good day at work or a bad one. He hasn’t been this demanding since John first moved in with him. He’s quickly deprived of his jeans, jumper and shit, leaving the clothes tossed over in the corner by the bed and just his pants to keep Jim from having all of him. Jim trails his fingers down John’s exposed chest, nails digging in and leaving thin pink lines over older scars. He licks his lips, and the remainder of John’s protest die unsaid in his throat. “Oh Johnny boy, I’ve missed you.”  
Jim doesn’t bother stripping, just stretches John with his fingers and then pushes in all the way, the cloth of his trousers rubbing against John’s hips. “Johnny boy, it’s been too long, too long.” John knows it hasn’t been (last night three times and this morning before Jim left for work), but his body can only moan in reply. He’s not quite ready for this, the pleasure brings as much pain, and the carpet is itching his back. He puts his hands on Jim’s hips; not thinking about trying to control Jim’s thrust but just trying to remind him that caution could do them some good in this case.  
“Say it, Johnny, say it for me.” There’s sweat dripping down Jim’s throat and onto his shirt, and his eyes have a crazed look to them like the madness from the pool. John can’t think of what Jim wants him to say, and he clearly takes too long trying to figure it out. Jim’s hips snap forward with a certain viciousness. “Now, pet.”  
“D-Daddy!”  
Within moments, Jim’s coming, and he pulls out to spill it over John’s stomach. Then he’s roughly grabbing John, and jerking with enough force to make him scream as he comes, thrashing against the floor. He’s boneless, shaking under Jim’s weight as the criminal falls forward against him. Jim presses his lips to John’s throat, and they fall asleep like that, spread out on the floor.


	11. On the eleventh day of Christmas... Toy Drive

“John, what’s this?” Jim holds the box up to his ear, rattling it slightly as he does so. John recognizes it as one of the gifts he’d snuck into the flat while Jim was out on a business trip, not even giving the criminal the chance to inspect it before it got under the tree.  
“A christmas present,” he replies smoothly, stirring his cider. At the childish pout Jim gives in him return, John chuckles. “And no, I’m not going to tell you any more details than that. If you can’t figure it out, then you’ll just have to wait until Christmas morning to find out.”  
It’s almost a little absurd, how annoyed Jim looks at hearing this. He puts the package down slowly, then crawls over to John. Putting his hands on either side of John’s knees, making the cushion buckle beneath his weight he looked up at John, a cheeky gleam in his dark eyes. “What if I was able to persuade you?” He licks his lips, and John’s very tempted to say yes. His mind flashes back to the warm winter wake up he’d gotten earlier that day.  
“No,” he says firmly, cutting down on that thought before it becomes traitorous. “The gifts are for Christmas, and you can’t change that Jim.” He forces Jim to move back as he slides off the couch, though the criminal doesn’t move far enough to let John get anywhere.  
Their knees knock together briefly before John moves his leg into a more comfortable position. “I’ve got another idea to pass the time though.”  
“And that is?” Jim’s voice trails off into a soft question, and now John’s the one grinning in glee.  
“Help me wrap some more gifts from the toy drive. I picked up a bunch of toys while I was out earlier.”  
“So that’s what the giant charge on my credit card was.”  
Jim’s voice has the unique tension in it that comes from when he’s trying to sound annoyed but is really thinking of John’s quirks fondly. John doesn’t know anyone else who manages to have that sort of voice with him, even his late mother. They get the bag of toys from the closet, and the wrapping paper from the bedroom. It takes them three hours, all of the remaining wrapping paper, and nearly all of the ribbon. And by the end of it all, John has a bow stuck to his forehead that Jim tells him matches his eyes, and there’s tiny bits of paper everywhere from when Jim got bored with the stuffed animals and decided to make confetti. The organizers of the toy drive thank them profusely, and John kisses Jim on the lips as they walk home, whispering in his ear that yes, they can do that activity that Jim mentioned earlier now.


	12. On the twelfth day of Christmas... Sleepy Fluff

The air is cold against John’s skin as Jim lifts the blanket up and slides in next to him, skin just as cool as he puts his arms around John’s shoulder. John hums and turns into the touch, without opening his eyes. Jim hadn’t woken him, not exactly, but it still seems like too much effort to greet him properly. Jim’s arms tighten around him in response to John’s humming, and his warm lips press against the scar on his shoulder. “Sorry I’m late,” he says softly, his lips drifting lower down and setting with his chin just below on John’s collarbone.  
“You’re here though.” Despite his wish to stay asleep, John finds himself waking up more with Jim talking to him and the warmth starting to divide between their two bodies. The large bed had been lonely the last few days, with John sleeping his own and way too many blankets for even one former army doctor. As part of their deal, he doesn’t know exactly where Jim’s been, just that it’s work and that Moran would have called John if anything got out of hand. Since this is the first he’s heard from either of them, the trip went well.  
“I’ve missed you,” Jim says into John’s ear, and John can hear the teasing smirk that’s on the criminal’s lips. “Couldn’t stop thinking about how I left you all alone on Christmas, like the terrible boyfriend I must be. I still can’t believe you let me go.”  
“But you’re back now.” John capture’s Jim’s roaming hands and holds them close, feeling the soft skin beneath his rough fingers, the way Jim’s thumb shies away from his touch as if it alone doesn’t want John near him. “That’s all that matters.”  
“Really?” Jim’s hands get free from John’s and drift even lower, teasing with the waistband of John’s pants. “You don’t want anything to make up for me being late coming back? Not even since it’s Christmas?”  
John sighs, but it’s wishful rather than annoyed like it could have been. Jim takes it as a sign to go further, and John happily wishes sleep goodbye. Jim’s fingers tease him, and his arms have managed to get trapped beneath Jim’s arms, so he can’t even roll in to face Jim. It’s not the best position, since both of Jim’s arms are on top of John and he hadn’t exactly been planning on this when he bunched three pillows under his side before going to bed, but it’s good. John stays quiet, still too tired to scream, and Jim doesn’t demand any noises from him. He gets noises anyways, but nothing like the scream he sometimes forces John to voice. After John’s gone limp in Jim’s arms, Jim ruts against him, pushing between his legs before coming himself, splattering over John’s back and legs, moaning softly into John’s ear about how he’ll find a way to make up for it, how they’ll reschedule Christmas and spend it together.  
John turns his hand and tugs Jim down into a kiss and whispers back that this is all the Christmas he needs.


End file.
